Date night

A week and a half ago Robert and I got to have such a fun date night.  Robert's cousin Michael is in charge of all the screens that Jason Aldean has up on stage during his concerts.  The tour came to Raleigh last Friday, and we got to go.  Robert and I aren't huge country music fans, and the only Jason Aldean song I know is the one he did with Kelly Clarkson, but the night was so much fun!  It was a beautiful evening, and the concert was outside.  Michael met us once we got there and took us behind the scenes.  We got to go on the stage and look around, see the tour buses, and play some corn hole with one of his co-workers.  We even got to sit in the sound booth with Michael during the concert.  How cool is that?

I have known Robert for 3.5 (or 5.5 years depending on who you ask) and I had never gotten to meet Michael before.  He was so nice!  Here are some of the pictures to capture our evening.

It was definitely a cultural experience.  The second we pulled in we saw I guy peeing on a tree.  There were so many people tailgating before the concert.  There were people doing typical tailgating things - corn hole, BBQ, etc.  But then there was another game where people were hammering a nail into a tree stump.  Robert and I are assuming that is only entertaining after you've had several beers.  There was also an RV that had karaoke going on.  That seemed to be quite a hit.  I felt rather out of place as far as what we were wearing.  I think we were the only people who didn't have on plaid or cowboy boots.  But it was seriously so much fun. 

Amy Elizabeth and the terrible horrible no good very bad weekend

Do you ever have one of those days/weeks where everything just goes wrong?  Nothing particular catastrophic happens, but everything just seems off.  This weekend was one such time.  So let's recap this series of unfortunate events.

My phone has been incredibly slow for MONTHS.  It freezes, it takes several minutes to open an app, etc.  The phone isn't technically broken so I can't bring myself to buying a new one.  It still makes phone calls so that's good.  My sweet husband was working on trying to make my phone faster.  So on Thursday night he was messing around and accidentally deleted every single one of my contacts.  300+ contacts that have taken 7 years to accumulate went out the window.  The plus side - my phone is definitely fast now.  The down side - I have 10 contacts.  Apparently I never memorized very many phone numbers.  It hadn't been too much of a pain until...

I burned my hand, Robert was at work, I didn't have a car, and I didn't know anyone's phone number so I couldn't call for help.  How did the burn happen?  Well, Robert worked from 4:00pm-1:30am yesterday.  Yuck!  So I was bored and decided to do some baking.  We have the most temperamental oven.  Robert and I consider ourselves to be above average cooks/bakers, but almost everything we make in our stupid oven turns out raw and fried to a crisp.  So I took my muffins out 5 minutes early and they were completely charred a ruined.  As if that doesn't stink enough, I hit my hand on the 350 degree oven rack.  I was turning on the exhaust fan over the stove to get rid of the smokey smell and I managed to scrape my hand on the corner of the hood and get a pretty nice gash.

I just don't think this picture does it justice.

So I wanted to get some burn cream (burn not pictured), but we let somebody borrow ours in May and haven't seen it since then.  I walked to a friend's apartment but she wasn't home.  I didn't have her phone number because, you guessed it, all my contacts got deleted.  And Robert wasn't going to be home for another 8 hours.

On Saturday we had tried making cookie bars for Sunday School.  The edges ended up charred and the inside was raw.  We ended up buying doughnuts...This was right after I had gotten home from the grocery store and realized we didn't have any onions and I had forgotten to buy more.

On Sunday Robert got to church to warm up for the band and realized his guitar's 9-volt battery was dead and his cable had gone kaput.  Thankfully, somebody randomly had a 9-volt battery (apparently I'm the only one who doesn't keep 9-volts handy?) and Robert had another cable at home that he was able to get and use for the 2nd and 3rd services.


This entire weekend was made so much better by the fact that I threw out my back.  My back had felt a little off all week, but I woke up from a nap on Saturday afternoon and could hardly move.  Robert had to prop me up.  I tried ice, heat, stretching, not moving.  Nothing has helped so far.  Maybe a trip to the doctor is in order soon.

Do you ever have those days/weeks that are just off?

Happy birthday to me!

I had such a great birthday on Sunday!  My parents had been in town last weekend which was a wonderful birthday present.  Robert did an awesome job of finishing all of his homework for the weekend by the time I got home on Friday.  That was a huge present because it meant we could have fun all weekend without him having needing to study at all.

On Saturday we went to The Olde English Tea Room for lunch.  It was delicious, per usual.  They have their shopped open downstairs.  Right now they are working on clearing out the inventory from the previous owner so everything is 25% off.  Once those items are gone they will restock the store with new inventory starting in October.  We will definitely have to go back once that happens.

Next we went over to The Giving Tree.  This is seriously one of the coolest stores.  It's a thrift store, but all of the profits go to Wake county schools.  It's an old house that they've turned into a store.  It's very clean and well-organized.  We ended up purchasing two games that were still in their original wrapper, and they were only $1 each.  We will definitely be going back.

We rounded out the day by getting all caught up on Grey's Anatomy.  I never thought I'd live to see the day that Robert would watch this show with me, but this summer he watched the entire series with me and loved it!  Now we're ready for the season premier this month.  After that, I got to take a nap while Robert cleaned the kitchen and made homemade pizza.  Yum!

Our church started a new budgetary year on September 1, and we started a new three year initiative on September 8 - I like to think of that as my birthday party.  So on the 7th we had a 24 hour prayer vigil.  Sunday School classes signed up for one hour time slots, and our class got 9:00-10:00pm.  I can't say that I've prayed for an hour straight many times, but it was a cool experience.  We had printouts of very specific prayers.  Praying specific prayers is something Pastor has been teaching us lately.  You can tell God your specific prayers.  "God, we want to see 100 people baptized this year," instead of "God, let a lot of people get baptized."  I believe that God hears both prayers, but it's definitely a different way to think about prayer.  We finished up the experience by partaking in the Lord's Supper.

On Sunday morning I woke up and Robert was already at church, but I found a very thoughtful note from Robert awaiting me.  I got all fancied up and was ready to go when Robert came back to pick me up.  Right when we got to Faith I saw Andrea, our Sunday School teacher.  She was waiting for me with a birthday card and a huge hug.  We haven't known her and her husband for long, but I can seriously say they are some of the most loving people I've ever met.  They make me feel so special and cared for.  They are great listeners and truly love us.  Andrea had asked Robert what kind of treat I wanted for Sunday School.  Robert said anything with chocolate chips - he knows me well.  So chocolate chip muffins were our treat for the day - delicious!  I had a few other people tell me happy birthday as I walked into the sanctuary.  So sweet!  It's really crazy to think about how many people we've met and become friends with since my last birthday.  Last year I'm pretty sure the only person who acknowledge my birthday in North Carolina was Robert.  When I got to Sunday School Robert had some gorgeous flowers with a note set up for me and the class sang happy birthday to me.  We had a Sunday School Social after class.  It was awesome!  The food was delicious, the children were adorable, we watched football, and they sang happy birthday to me again.  Andrea had made a delicious dessert - brownies with chocolate chip cookies baked on top.  So awesome!

When Robert and I got home we opened presents.  Robert got me a bunt pan, my parents got me a cover for our Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer (they had already taken me on a shopping spree last weekend), and Serina got me a super cool coloring book.  She took 40 or so of our favorite pictures and turned them into coloring pages.  How cool is that?  Then I talked on the phone with Mom and Dad, Serina, Bethany, Ray, Grandma and Grandpa, Jim, and Facetimed with Memaw and Pepaw.  I also got countless birthday texts and Facebook messages.  Then we took another nap.  No birthday is complete without a nap, if you ask me.  Robert made dinner and then we have five friends over for dessert and Wii games.  One couple got me the book Love Does.  I've read two chapters so far, and it's really good!

On Monday I got a couple more cards, some birthday money, and I coworker brought me a cupcake so I got to keep the celebration going! 

So I'm 23 now.  In my mind I'm still thinking I'm 22, but it'll catch up with me eventually.  I've just been reflecting on when I started high school.  That was almost a decade ago.  9 years.  It's incredible to think about how much happens in a decade...a year...a day.

Warmth by Leigha

My dear friend Leigha has a new craft store called Warmth by Leigha.  You can visit her store (link above) or go to Facebook to check her out.  Go on, do it!

Labor Day

Robert is off to a good start in his second year of seminary.  This semester he is taking New Testament: Jesus and the Gospels, Philosophy, Bible Exposition, and Supervised Field Ministry.  For the field ministry he will be doing an internship with the music minister at our church.  I'm taking a church history class at the seminary as well.  It works out perfectly because it's at the same time and in the same building as Robert's philosophy class so we get to ride together.  History isn't my fave subject, but the class is going well so far.

Happy first day of school!

I got to go to my first ever watermelon festival a few weeks ago.  We have had two other couples from SBU move out here since we moved - one came last July and one came this summer.  The six of us met up and went to a watermelon festival.  It was awesome!  A parade, craft booths, watermelon eating competition, food trucks, rides.  We didn't do any rides - too expensive BUT Robert did compete in the watermelon eating contest.  He didn't win, but he got a participant ribbon. :)

Mom's birthday was at the end of August.  I hate missing special events and celebrations!  But Dad did text me a few pictures from the party.

This weekend we had the pleasure of hosting my parents.  It was so great!  We ate lots of good food, went shopping, they got to come to church and see Robert play in the band, played games, and just enjoyed being together.  Not excited about the fact that we won't see them again until Christmas.

Robert and Dad enjoyed golfing together

Dinner at Simply Crepes

Dessert at The Dairy Depot

Dinner at Girasole